There and Gone
by Petal Dust
Summary: After getting to Midgar and being found by Tifa, Cloud is haunted by scattered memories - particularly one with an unforgettable smile and blue-green eyes. One-shot, takes place between Crisis Core and FF VII. Very mild Zack/Cloud if you squint.


**A/N:** Well, I just officially finished Crisis Core a couple days ago (got stuck on that darn Genesis Avatar and gave up on it for a long time) and was inspired to write this. I read up on the plot of Final Fantasy VII and by my understanding, Cloud completely loses his memories of Zack for a good part of the game and believes that most of the things Zack did were done by himself. I wanted to write about what Cloud might've felt like during that confused little time period between Crisis Core and FF VII if the memories of Zack (especially his death) sort of hung around for a short while before he lost them. It's a bit experimental (and angsty, I suppose), but I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for reading, and reviews are much appreciated. :)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters belong to Square Enix, not me.

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><p>I can't stand sleeping anymore.<p>

It's because of him. I can't remember him, and at the same time I can't forget him. I don't even know if he really exists or if I made him up. But whoever he is, he's _there_. He haunts me like a ghost. As soon as I close my eyes - even just to blink - he's there, his image flickering behind my eyelids with that smile and those bright eyes and sometimes I even think I hear a warm, familiar voice. But that's all he does. Flicker. Then he's gone. I don't think I could bear any more than that, anyway.

He's somewhere in my head, in my memories, but every time I try to remember who he is something inside me starts aching and it gets worse and worse until I can't think. Sometimes it gets so bad I want to scream at the empty air, beg him to just _go away_ because he _hurts_. Sleep wears me out. The closest I get to remembering him is in my dreams. But when I wake up all that lingers are bits and pieces, just feelings and distant memories like faded photographs, and when I try to hold onto them they crumble away and I'm left with nothing.

I try to maintain composure when I'm awake. Setting my face in stone and letting my eyes harden. It's better that way, better to hide the cracks because I don't want anyone thinking that I need to be mended. I don't need people worrying about me. Well, _she_ might see through me. But it doesn't matter. I miss smiling - I think I used to do that, smiling - but I feel like I've lost a piece of me that I'll never get back.

Tonight it's pouring rain as I fall asleep, droplets pounding on the roof and beating against the window pane. After a while I reluctantly let sleep take over. And then I'm catapulted into a memory so vivid I know it can't be made up.

_ I feel numb. It's so hard to move. So hard. Something's wrong with me but I don't care. I drag myself along the cold, rocky ground, grabbing for stones and cracks to pull myself forward. I'm crawling toward someone. _Him_. I weakly raise my head and squint through the gray sheets of rain and wet strands of blond hair falling into my eyes, dripping water along my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. And I see him. Lying there in puddles of rainwater turned red with his own blood. My stomach knots up._

_ By the time I'm next to him I'm exhausted enough to keel over, but I forget everything about me as I gaze down at him. His blue-green eyes look back up at me with a strange calmness. I remember them being so much brighter. His face is covered in streaks of blood and it's everywhere and there's bullet wounds all over him and then I know that he's dying. He's dying right before my eyes. I feel like I'm dying, too. His name rises to my lips and I can barely get it out because my voice is wet sand in my throat and memories are washing over me and it feels like I'm drowning in rain and remembering._

_ "Z-Zack?"_

_ Don't go._

_ He winces in pain. Then, impossibly, he smiles a little at me, and my heart clenches. He doesn't deserve this. He's the last person who deserves this._

_ "For the...both of us," he manages to say._

_ I don't understand what he means. My mind is practically blank. All I can do is stare down at him dumbly and repeat his words as a question._

_ "For the...both of us?"_

_ "That's right," he responds, pausing to catch his breath again. "You're gonna..."_

_ He's struggling to go on. His lips part to speak but he can't get the sound out. No. No, he can't die yet, not now. Please._

_ "You're gonna...?" I prompt him after a moment, my voice quiet and meek. I feel like a child. Helpless. Helpless to save my closest friend, someone I love more than anything._

_ Love. Guess that's why it hurts so much to remember him._

_ He reaches his arm up to place a gloved hand on the back of my head, gently pushing it down until my face is pressed to his chest._

_ "Live."_

_ Live. That's funny. How could I really live when he can't? _

_ His blood is sticking to me, the smell filling my nose and putting the taste of copper in my mouth, but I don't mind. His body is still so warm. His chest rises and falls beneath me as he breathes. I feel his firm grip on my head, his fingers nestled in my hair. It's almost comforting. He's still alive, still _here_, even though I know he won't be for much longer. For a fleeting moment I see us standing in the snow, smiling, laughing. Then it's gone. I wish I could go back to that. Go back and stay in that moment forever._

_ I swear I can hear his heartbeat, thudding slow and tired._

_ "You'll be...my living legacy."_

_ The words are trying to sink into me as he lets his hand slip out of my hair and drops his arm back to the ground. I slowly lift my head. I can feel his blood on my face, warm and wet against my cheek and matting my hair, but I don't bother wiping it off. I can't tear my gaze from his eyes as he grips the hilt of his sword and carefully picks it up. I don't know how he's doing it, in the condition he's in. But he does it. He lifts the sword slightly, motions for me to take it. But all I can do is sit there and stare at him. Telling myself that this isn't happening._

_ "My honor...my dreams," he breathes, then finishes definitively, "They're _yours_ now."_

_ Tentatively, I take the sword from him, wrapping the fingers of both my hands around the hilt as he lets go and gives it a small shove toward me. It's heavy. Heavy with metal and the hardships of two heroes. And now it belongs to me, a nobody who could never do what he's done. It's not right. But I accept it. I have to._

_ What he said earlier finally hits me._

_ "I'm...your living...legacy," I echo softly. The words leave my mouth like molasses._

_ He's smiling as his eyes drift closed. And just like that, he's gone._

_ Something's blocking my airway. I feel like I'm choking. I slowly raise my eyes from his face as the tears start to build and the sobs start to leave me and I take in air in shaky breaths. More memories are rushing into me now, so many memories that there can't be enough room in me to hold them. I don't want to believe it but a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispers that he's gone. He's _gone._ And he's not coming back. I clutch the sword like it's all I have. It is._

_ I tilt my head back to the raining sky and scream._

I'm screaming.

Beads of sweat are trickling down the sides of my face and I'm fighting to breathe. Someone is talking to me, gently coaxing me into a sitting position and grasping my arms, trying to calm me with desperate reassurances. Tifa. I stop screaming and try to focus on her face as she repeats It's okay, it's okay, over and over again. It's not okay. But even as I think it, I can't remember exactly what's not okay. Why was I screaming? Feelings, faded photographs. They crumble.

I can't remember again. I can't remember him. What was his name?

My hands clench into fists around the fabric of the blankets and I lie down on my back, still struggling a little to take in breaths. Tifa opens her mouth like she's about to say something, then stops. She stands there a moment more before quietly leaving the room. I'm grateful to her. She's got a knack for understanding when I really need to be left alone. It's still dark out and the rain keeps falling in a heavy downpour. I turn to gaze at it through the window, trying to remember, but everything just gets more confused and jumbled up.

One moment, I remember hovering over a dying man. Someone important. Gray and red. Snow and laughter. Then the next moment, I'm the dying one. I'm the one lying there in puddles of water and blood and staring up at the gray sky and feeling my life slipping away into the cold stone against my back. I'd been running. From liquid-filled cylinders and pain and no freedom. I'd been protecting someone. Someone important. Then I'm staring down at him and his blood is sticking to my face but the memory is so fuzzy that I could be looking down at myself. I'm dying. He's dying. But he is me. Isn't he?

I cover my face with my hands and groan into them. I feel like my mind is betraying me. My head is pounding, tears prick at my eyes. I've never felt so damn frustrated.

Lightning flashes, thunder rumbles. Then I feel it.

A presence. Someone else is here and it's not Tifa. I lower my hands from my face and turn my head to look around the room, thinking that now I've officially lost it. Then I see him there. There, silhouetted against the rain-splattered window, a solid black figure cutting through the gray glow of moonlight. I can't see his face but I know it's him. My heart rate accelerates as I sit up slowly, keeping my eyes on that shadowy form and waiting for him to disappear, to disintegrate into the air and take all the memories with him. He doesn't. He just stands there. I shift my legs over the edge of the bed, the sheets rustling, and place my bare feet on the carpet. He still doesn't move. Then I push myself up and start to take steps toward him, my feet like lead, my eyes never leaving him. And even though I can't see them, I can feel his eyes on me.

A flash of lightning illuminates his face for a split second and I get a glimpse of those blue-green eyes staring at me, set in a serious expression. There's something red on his face. Dripping to the floor from his chin. My heart plummets and my head aches but my feet keep taking me toward him. It feels like an eternity passes before I'm finally standing right in front of him in the square of gray light. I can see him better now. Spikes of black hair damp with rain, eyes vibrant and poignant as they gaze at me through the blood on his face - weathered gemstones on red silk. I wish he'd smile. But he just gazes and gazes with some kind of complex sadness that makes my insides ache more. Like he expects something of me. I wait for a name to come but it doesn't and now there's not even a memory of a feeling and he means nothing to me.

He means nothing to me.

Hot tears finally start to slide down my cheeks.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, searching his face like I'll remember him if I just search enough. I don't. My head throbs and my stomach twists. He regards me levelly with his gemstone eyes. Blood keeps dripping slowly from his chin. I reach out to him with a slightly trembling hand, the taste of salt from tears on my tongue mixing with some faint memory of copper, but I can't remember where the memory comes from because every feeling and faded photograph is gone. My fingers gingerly touch his cheek. Warm blood slides against my fingertips as my ghost closes his eyes. And still I remember nothing, feel nothing.

"I'm so sorry," I murmur, my voice cracking. If I said it a thousand times it wouldn't be enough.

He opens his eyes to look at me with something new in them, something warmer that makes the ache inside me ebb a little. A soft smile appears on his face. He reaches up to grasp my hand and gently pulls it away from his cheek. Blood and rainwater, slick against my skin. His blue-green eyes, so vivid. And just as I start thinking that maybe he's not a hallucination, he starts to blur. Disintegrate into the air just like I thought he would. I try to tighten my grip on his hand but it's slipping away like cloth between my fingers. Then his mouth moves but I can't hear any sound and it's as if he's on a muted television being engulfed in static. But I can see what he's saying.

_ It's okay, Cloud._

And he's gone.

He's gone so fast that I end up stumbling forward a few steps, and when I look up I come face-to-face with the rain-splattered window pane. For a moment all I feel is dazed and more confused. I take another careful step to the window and press both my hands against it, resting my forehead on the cool glass, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. There's still nothing. No memories of the man I just saw and felt. I can't remember him, and at the same time I can't forget him. His image flickers behind my eyelids. I see a smile, bright eyes, hear a faint echo of that warm and familiar voice. But that's all he does. Flicker. And that's okay.

I open my eyes and watch my breath forming fog on the window pane.

"I'll remember you," I whisper, my eyes now focusing on the thin smears of red that my fingers leave on the glass. They're barely there but they're _there._ "Someday. I promise."

I hear the shuffle of feet as someone enters the room. This time I know it's Tifa. I should've known she'd refuse to just go back to bed after seeing me wake up screaming. She approaches me cautiously, softly. Then she places a hand on my shoulder. I turn to look at her, my head still resting against the window. She looks back up at me with concerned dark eyes.

"Come on, Cloud," she says quietly, giving my shoulder a light tug. "You need to sleep."

Sleep. That sounds good.


End file.
